Eterium

Deathsnake

Rear Admiral
A greenlight Project:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=148853023
Take a look at the Cover... I know that!

endrun.jpg
 
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I'm the artist on Eterium and that image was in my reference. I'm actually stunned how similar they are! I felt like I was making decisions based on what I thought looked good and from comments and suggestions. I now look at the comparison and am floored at how many similarities there are! I'm even starting to wonder, if I reference it that much? I remember my train of thought for some of the elements... Either way I think it is too close, even for an homage. I'm sorry. I don't know how that happened. It wasn't intentional and I will re-make the cover.
 
I personaly like it ;) So no need to change it.

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I wrote a user-News at the german side Gamersglobal and the Spacefans there should vote for your Project ;)
 
well it was one of those things that I felt shocked that I ended up as close to one of the images I referenced. I never went back to compare it. We were referencing lots of WC and other classic space sims. I stopped looking at reference somewhere long the way and I guess it still stuck in my head as I worked. That image will still exist in places as maybe an easter egg but I think I'll still change the cover. Some of the image will be the same. Still cockpit, and planet, actually update the cockpit to the latest, and I'll re-design the ship placements and action.
 
Agentfx, would you mind shooting me a private message with an email to you or Andrew Luby? I've been working on WC mods and commercial air combat titles for more than a decade, so I'd love to take a closer look at your game and offer some feedback about the game design and story.

In answer to your question - there is quite a remarkable resemblence in composition, but I don't think it matters that it's so close. Your project is all about referencing old space-sims, right? So, I don't think anyone will be offended by such an explicit similarity.

There is, on the other hand, a problem with the actual capship in the middle. I suppose this combines with the composition - maybe I wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't positioned identically as the End Run cover, but in any case - the ship resembles the Tarawa from the End Run cover very strongly. Or, to be precise, it resembles the version we created for Standoff, with the hangar underneath. It's not so close as to constitute plagiarism, but when put in the middle of that image, it does become problematic :).
 
I'll do that. I think extra eyes from another WC fan would be fantastic.

The ships is all Andrew's direction. He wanted a landing deck that goes all the way through the center. And liked the 2 front pointy things out the... ah front. hah. He modeled something years ago, that I referenced. But that was the only reference, and it wasn't very good, but its possible that he looked at yours or any other WC ship. I think WC fans are going to find a lot of similarities in many ways that I have no idea of. I liked the games but only played a few of them back in the day. Andrew is the passionate fan. I've not even read the whole story line yet b/c I've been caught up in work and art fixes.

I'll PM you...
 
So, the guys working on Eterium have let me know today that they've set up a Kickstarter. If anyone feels like throwing a few bucks at an indie space sim, check it out (and try the demo)!

I've been chatting to Andrew and David (Agentfx, the guy who posted above) about their plans for the finished product, and I've actually given them a great big chunk of feedback after playing through the demo - which is to say, there's definitely room for improvement. What I like about this project, though, is that they've been very open and positive about my comments (which I arrogantly believe are invaluable ;) ), I didn't get any bullshit about how "we're happy with this the way it is" or "we're staying true to our vision" et cetera. So, while I'm not about to give them an "oh, this will be the best thing ever" kind of endorsement, I do think it's a nice project to check out and support for WC fans.

The only thing I really don't like about it is the faces they use for cutscenes - but that's one of the things they want to change. Hopefully I can persuade them to buy FaceGen and create Standoff-style 3d talking heads cutscenes (just, you know, better than the stone-age talking heads we had)... ;)
 
Thanks for the kind words Quarto. Your notes have been great. Visually I have a dream of what I want to the game to look like, and the 3D space part is close. I've looked at the FaceGen and its not bad, but the pipeline of using that to working in game seems too much work for me. The quality I'd want would again be a large undertaking, even with that tool, right now we plan to hire a anime/comic artist to make all the characters more dynamic an interesting.

I did leave open to Andrew the possibility of animated "talking heads" as a stretch goal, but I think we'd need voice acting as well for that.
 
Just took a look at the Steam site and gave you a thumbs up,
It looks pretty sweet, I could see myself picking this up when it gets greenlit.

One comment, the ships warping in sound effect on the video seemed a bit weak to me, something deeper might be better perhaps?
 
Backed. Really like the look of this game and delighted that developer is redoing the characters as wasn't into the anime style at all.
 
Wow! I looked in on Eterium's Kickstarter page a couple of hours ago, and thought - "nah, they ain't gonna make it, they need three thousand dollars and only have four hours to go". I looked again just now, expecting the whole thing to be finished, and couldn't believe it: with sixty minutes to go, they only need another $300-something to make it. So, if anyone has money to spare - come on, even if you're not particularly interested in the project, throw these guys a dime, just so they can get across the finish line!
 
Awesome! With 50 minutes to go, they've already reached the goal, with those three hundred dollars materialising in just a few minutes. Congratulations, Andrew and David!
 
Fantastic news upped my pledge, but didn't think they would make it. It would be great if the game is made available through GOG.
 
Yeah, congrats! I imagine there were some tense nerves these last few days, but sometimes projects get a good rally going on their last day or two.
 
Eterium was released earlier this week on Steam and Desura. I've put in some good hours with it and after completing the campaign (which lasted a good 8+ hours) I wrote this little review.

I didn't back it in Kickstarter, but I'm surprised no-one hear brought it back up. Guess you all too busy playing it. :p
 
Downloading the demo now. I'm surprised they abandoned the xbox360 platform, since I believe it would do great on the 360, that has only a few combat simulators worth playing(And I've played pretty much all of them, except those I missed because I never heard from them)
 
So I purchased this on Steam and am quite enjoying it so far (just finished mission 3)! Though I started on Ace (with adaptive difficulty on) and it's darn hard. I feel quite inferior to my wingmen at the moment... ^.^; Given the small team, I am *very* impressed. It's beautiful, fun, nice music, and the story seems promising so far as well (and I think some of the characters are quite cute...but that's a me liking anime in general...very nice art though if you're into that type of thing). I like the ship designs too.

I'd definitely recommend people check this out. I feel like I've already gotten my $20 worth.
 
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